em can say it better....

I helped convince Nick to road trip to Maine with Ben tonight. He found out about it just two hours before...and was debating on whether he should go or not. I told him that if he didn't go, these next couple of days would blur together and he would never remember them...but if he did he would always be able to tell the story, "yeah I've been to Maine, I found out 2 hours before and then drove through the night....." I told him it would be a good story and a fun memory. So he said, "Done. I'm going. You just spoke my language."

I thought about that tonight after he left. I love that I spoke his language, because that's my language too. It's the language of an adventurer and a memory seeker. I have other friends that speak that language too... and oh how awesome it is when we get together.

I was reunited with a fellow speaker this break. Emily Wilkens. Em put this post on her blog... but i wanted it to be on mine too. she's a much better writer/sumerupper than i am... so i thought this might be easier. so this is for those who don't read em's blog (which you should cause it's awesome) this is one of my favorite memories from break...


smells like living:

tara and i met long ago, but didn't become close friends (for some funny reasons) until a few years ago--when we became FAST friends. we've talked almost every day of this last quarter--chat, text, email, call. seriously, i love this girl--

i've MISSED her spontaneity--and not just spontaneity, but her make-it-happen quality, and her listener quality, and her quality quality....does that make sense?

we're memory-makers. at least when we're together--and when you don't see someone for long stretches of time, you have to make it count.

my friend israel and i once snuck into a hotel pool when we were on a long road trip and hadn't showered for days. we sat in this wooden sauna for a long time and when we rubbed our skin, it peeled off.

so this last friday night, tara and i decided to head to the hotels of walla walla, find the ones which had nice pools and jacuzzis, and find a way to swim. we went through my swimsuit drawer and found these two killer ones.

we went to four hotels without success.

strike one. walked past the desk, acted confident, found the pool, it was empty, with a card sliding lock.
strike two. knocked on the pool glass door in our suits, the couple inside looked at us and then ignored us!!
strike three. front desk man looked at us and asked us how he could help us--his eye brows raised really high! we scrammed.
strike four. asked for directions to the pool and were sent to a pool, outdoor and frozen. hah

with failure behind us, we pulled into the Best Western. and sometimes we get all sissy-like at these points--when things seem to not work out over and over. this was the last shot.

so we walked right on by the woman at the desk, tara greeted her while i pretended to talk on my cell phone (we needed to look like we already had a room and knew what we were doing). we rounded the corner and started to hush hush our plan: "Tara, you go tour around the upstairs. I'll wait here, until that couple who is soaking in the tub, comes out, and as they start to get up, I'll be talking on my phone and pretend like the timing just happened to be right, they'll open the door for me and i'll head on in. I'll call you once I'm in."

Everything happened just like we imagined--granted it was the fifth attempt--but soon tara and I were soaking and swimming and jumping--we had the whole pool to ourselves. We kept high-fiving eachother.

There were big glass windows through which the woman at the desk could watch us. she looked suspicious. i think she probably couldn't take us seriously in our swimming suits. but soon she was at the door to the pool. she came in with towels under her arm and i knew this was bad. she asked in a weird tone, "do you guys need any towels?"

I said, "No, we're ok."
Then she asked her real questions, "and what room are you guys in?"
I froze--flashed her a panicked look--eyes wide, like a dead giveaway guilty look.
She said, "That's what I thought." And she told us it was her job, that she had to kick us out. She was nice, and part of me thinks she let us swim for a while, that she had actually detected our sneaking earlier.















tara and i got out and smelled like chlorine. we smelled like living too which was nice.

-emily wilkens